Articles

Humanities Texas Book Fair 2010

Humanities Texas will host a holiday book fair at the historic Byrne-Reed House on Saturday, December 11, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Twenty-five noteworthy authors will be available to sign copies of their latest books. The public is invited to visit with the authors and purchase books. Free parking will be available in the St. Martin's Evangelical Lutheran Church's large parking lot on the northwest corner of 15th and Rio Grande Streets. Coffee will be available alongside homemade and donated baked treats.

Humanities Texas 2010 Book Fair Flyer.

Patriotic Envelopes of the Civil War

Steven R. Boyd

Steven R. Boyd is a professor of history at The University of Texas at San Antonio. With more than 180 full-color illustrations, Patriotic Envelopes of the Civil War examines the vast array of envelopes designed to promote the war effort on both sides. These envelopes depicted soldiers, political leaders, Union and Confederate flags, Miss Liberty, Martha Washington, and more. Boyd examines their imagery to understand what motivated soldiers and civilians to support a war far more protracted and destructive than anyone anticipated in 1861.

Patriotic Envelopes of the Civil War book jacket.

American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865–1900

H. W. Brands

H. W. Brands is the Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History at The University of Texas at Austin. He writes on American history and politics, with books including Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times, The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, and T. R.: The Last Romantic. Several of his books have been bestsellers; two, Traitor to His Class and The First American, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

In this grand-scale narrative history, Brands brilliantly portrays the emergence, in a remarkably short time, of a recognizably modern America. American Colossus captures the decades between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, when a few breathtakingly wealthy businessmen transformed the United States from an agrarian economy to a world power. From the first Pennsylvania oil gushers to the rise of Chicago skyscrapers, this spellbinding narrative shows how men like Morgan, Carnegie, and Rockefeller ushered in a new era of unbridled capitalism. In the end America achieved unimaginable wealth, but not without cost to its traditional democratic values.

American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865–1900 book jacket.

American Dreams: The United States Since 1945

H. W. Brands

In American Dreams: The United States Since 1945, H. W. Brands captures the American experience through the last six decades. As he chronicles politics, pop culture, and everything in between, Brands traces the changes we have gone through as a nation, recounting the great themes and events that have driven America—from the Yalta conference to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Apollo 11 to 9/11, My Lai to "shock and awe."  In his adroit hands, movements and trends unfold through a character-driven narrative that shines a brilliant light on America's watershed moments and reveals a still unfolding legacy of dreams.

American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 book jacket.

Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

H. W. Brands

A brilliant evocation of the qualities that made FDR one of the most beloved and greatest of American presidents.

Drawing on archival material, public speeches, correspondence and accounts by those closest to Roosevelt early in his career and during his presidency, H. W. Brands shows how Roosevelt transformed American government during the Depression with his New Deal legislation, and carefully managed the country's prelude to war. Brands shows how Roosevelt's friendship and regard for Winston Churchill helped to forge one of the greatest alliances in history, as Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin maneuvered to defeat Germany and prepare for post-war Europe.

Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt book jacket.

Conversations with Cronkite

Don Carleton

Dr. Don E. Carleton, executive director of The University of Texas at Austin's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, has published and lectured extensively in the fields of local history, archives, historical research methods and sources, urban history, the history of broadcast journalism, and twentieth-century U.S. political history. Conversations with Cronkite gives readers a rare glimpse into the life and times of the legendary journalist through selections from interviews that Dr. Carleton conducted.

Conversations with Cronkite book jacket.

Emily Austin of Texas 1795–1851

Light Cummins

In Emily Austin of Texas 1795–1851, Light T. Cummins, Texas State Historian and Bryan Professor of History at Austin College, chronicles the extraordinary life and legacy of one of Texas's foremost pioneer women. On March 5, 2010, Cummins received the Liz Carpenter Award for Research in the History of Women at the annual meeting of the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) in Dallas. The award honors the best scholarly book on the history of women in Texas published during the previous calendar year.

Emily Austin of Texas 1795–1851 book jacket.

Disarmed: The Story of the Venus de Milo

Gregory Curtis

Gregory Curtis is an author and editor based in Austin. From 1981–2000, he was editor of Texas Monthly, where he had served as a writer since 1972. Disarmed: The Story of the Venus de Milo explores the intrigues, conflicts, and mysteries surrounding one of the world's most famous statues "from its beginnings in Greek history to its preeminence today as the jewel of the Louvre in Paris."

Disarmed: The Story of the Venus de Milo book jacket.

The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists

Gregory Curtis

The Cave Painters is a vivid introduction to the spectacular cave paintings of France and Spain—the individuals who rediscovered them, theories about their origins, their splendor and mystery.

Gergory Curtis makes us see the astonishing sophistication and power of the paintings and tells us what is known about their creators, the Cro-Magnon people of some 40,000 years ago. He takes us through various theories—that the art was part of fertility or hunting rituals, or used for religious purposes, or was clan mythology—examining the ways interpretations have changed over time. Rich in detail, personalities, and history, The Cave Painters is above all permeated with awe for those distant humans who developed—perhaps for the first time—both the ability for abstract thought and a profound and beautiful way to express it.

The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists book jacket.

Tejano Leadership in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas

Jesús F. de la Teja

Jesús F. de la Teja chairs the history department at Texas State University, where his research interests focus on the northeastern frontier of Spanish colonial Mexico. In Tejano Leadership in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas, lesser-known figures such as Father Refugio de la Garza, Juan Martín Veramendi, José Antonio Saucedo, Raphael Manchola, and Carlos de la Garza join their better-known counterparts—José Antonio Navarro, Juan Seguín, and Plácido Benavides, for example—on the stage of Texas and regional historical consideration.

Tejano Leadership in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas book jacket.

Republic of Barbecue

Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt

Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, associate professor of American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, researches food, gender, race, and class in the southern United States. Republic of Barbecue presents a fascinating, multifaceted portrait of the world of barbecue in Central Texas. The authors look at everything from legendary barbecue joints in places such as Taylor and Lockhart to feedlots, ultra-modern sausage factories, and sustainable forests growing hardwoods for barbecue pits.

Republic of Barbecue book jacket.

Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women's Activism in the Beauty Industry

Tiffany Gill

Tiffany M. Gill is associate professor in the Department of History at The University of Texas at Austin, as well as an affiliate with the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies and the Center for Women's and Gender Studies. Beauty Shop Politics shows how black beauticians in the Jim Crow era parlayed their economic independence and access to a public community space into platforms for activism.

Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women's Activism in the Beauty Industry book jacket.

Book of Days

Emily Fox Gordon

Emily Fox Gordon has taught writing workshops at Rice University, the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston, The New School, the University of Wyoming, and Houston's writing organization, Inprint. Her disarmingly personal essays reflect a woman's hope to find a narrative for her life.

Book of Days book jacket.

The Empire of Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

S. C. Gwynne

S. C. Gwynne is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared extensively in Time, for which he worked as bureau chief, national correspondent, and senior editor from 1988 to 2000, and in Texas Monthly, where he served as executive editor. Empire of the Summer Moon traces the history of the Comanches and tells the tale of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her half-Comanche son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.

The Empire of Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History book jacket.

Passionate Nation: The Epic History of Texas

James Haley

James L. Haley is a historian whose works include Sam Houston: A Life (2002), which won nine historical and literary awards, The Buffalo War (1976), and Apaches (1981). He is also the author of four novels. In Passionate Nation, Haley offers a comprehensive and definitive history of how Texas became Texas, even before it became a central national symbol for America.

Passionate Nation: The Epic History of Texas book jacket.

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London

James Haley

Born a working-class, fatherless Californian in 1876, Jack London spent his youth as a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast; by adulthood he had matured into the iconic American author of such still universally loved books as The Call of the Wild and White Fang. In Wolf, award-winning biographer James L. Haley explores the forgotten Jack London: a hard-living globetrotter bristling with ideas whose passion for social justice roared until the day he died. Returning London to his proper place in the American pantheon, Haley resurrects a major American novelist in his full fire and glory.

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London book jacket.

How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics

Bill Hobby

Bill Hobby, who served as lieutenant governor from 1972 to 1990, is the state's longest-serving lieutenant governor. Hobby's candid recollections about his days in office, as well as his take on what state government should and should not do, are part of How Things Really Work. His no-holds-barred opinions about everything from partisan politics to efforts to rewrite the Texas Constitution, government wiretaps, and the war on drugs are included in this memoir, as are his memories of working with Texas politicians Ben Ramsey, Dolph Briscoe, Bill Clements, and Ann Richards.

How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics book jacket.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Jacqueline Kelly

Jacqueline Kelly is a former lawyer and physician whose debut novel is The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. This Newbery Honor book tells the story of Calpurnia Virginia Tate, an eleven-year-old girl who lives in a small Texas town in 1899. Callie, as she is called, is a budding naturalist, brimming with intellectual curiosity. Callie's transformation into a young woman amidst her boisterous family will appeal to teenagers and adults alike.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate book jacket.

Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids: Thirty Years of Filmmaking in Austin, Texas

Alison Macor

Alison Macor is a freelance writer and former film critic for The Austin Chronicle and the Austin American-Statesman. Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids chronicles Austin's colorful movie history. Based on revealing interviews with Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Mike Judge, Quentin Tarantino, Matthew McConaughey, George Lucas, and more than one hundred other players in the local and national film industries, this book explores how Austin has become a proving ground for contemporary independent cinema.

Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids: Thirty Years of Filmmaking in Austin, Texas book jacket.

On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain

Debra Monroe

As this memoir begins, Debra Monroe, mired in debt, and on the verge of a second divorce, pulls up in front of a tumbledown cabin a few miles outside a tiny town in Texas. Its isolation—miles from her teaching job in a neighboring city—feels right. A few years later, she files papers to adopt a child. As a single white mother raising a black daughter, Monroe, a National Book Award nominee, ponders the meaning of race, family, and more.

On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain book jacket.

Honeybee

Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye is a renowned poet whose Arab-American heritage informs her work. She has received awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Carity Randall Prize, the International Poetry Forum, as well as four Pushcart Prizes. She will be signing three of her books for young adults at our book fair. Honeybee is a collection of Shihab Nye's poems and short prose.

Honeybee book jacket.

I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay?

Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye is a renowned poet whose Arab-American heritage informs her work. She has received awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Carity Randall Prize, the International Poetry Forum, as well as four Pushcart Prizes. She will be signing three of her books for young adults at our book fair. I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay? consists of her impressions, anecdotes, and tales of driving and being driven.

I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay? book jacket.

Is This Forever, or What?

Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye is a renowned poet whose Arab-American heritage informs her work. She has received awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Carity Randall Prize, the International Poetry Forum, as well as four Pushcart Prizes. She will be signing three of her books for young adults at our book fair. Is This Forever, or What? is a vibrant anthology of 140 Texan poets and artists.

Is This Forever, or What? book jacket.

Uncertain Ground

Carolyn Osborn

Carolyn Osborn has served as president of the Texas Institute of Letters and was one of the founders of the Texas Book Festival. Set in 1953, Uncertain Ground describes a period of uncertainty for twenty-year-old Celia Henderson while she visits relatives in Galveston, a city built on a barrier island with its own history of instability and survival. In the pre-reform Galveston of the 1950s, Celia faces a series of conflicts: old south vs. old west, typified by a wild cowboy cousin, Emmett Chandler, and fifties' prejudices, most apparent against homosexuals and Mexican-Americans.

Uncertain Ground book jacket.

Smeltertown: Making and Remaking a Southwest Border Community

Monica Perales

Monica Perales is assistant professor of history at the University of Houston as well as a Humanities Texas board member. Smeltertown, or La Esmelda, as many of its residents called it, was home to generations of Mexican American workers and their families. Beginning in the 1880s, these workers built their homes at the base of the copper smelter operated by American Refining and Smelting Company (ASARCO). The town was condemned and its residents relocated in 1972, after medical studies confirmed high levels of lead in children. Although hundreds of El Pasoans can trace their roots back to Smeltertown, the community and its history were barely mentioned in history books. Smeltertown tells the story of the community's birth, growth, and demise.

Smeltertown: Making and Remaking a Southwest Border Community book jacket.

The Supreme Court and the American Elite

Lucas A. Powe, Jr.

A leading historian of the Supreme Court, Powe is the Anne Green Regents Chair in Law and professor of government at The University of Texas School of Law. In The Supreme Court and the American Elite, Powe provides a revealing look at the history of the Court and the close ties between its decisions and the nation's politics.

The Supreme Court and the American Elite book jacket.

The Last Skin

Barbara Ras

Barbara Ras is the author of One Hidden Stuff and Bite Every Sorrow, which was selected by C. K. Williams for the Walt Whitman Award. She has worked as a senior acquisitions editor for the University of Georgia Press in Athens, and has taught at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a Guggenheim fellowship. Currently she directs the Trinity University Press in San Antonio, Texas. The Last Skin is her third book of poems.

The Last Skin book jacket.

Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation

John Phillip Santos

John Phillip Santos is a San Antonio-based filmmaker, producer, journalist, and author. His first memoir, Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation, explores the indigenous and Mexican background of his father's family. The memoir, which includes elements of poetry, chronicles Santos's journeys around the world to explore and understand his Tejano heritage.

Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation book jacket.

The Farthest Home Is in an Empire of Fire: A Tejano Elegy

Jon Phillip Santos

In this beautifully written, highly original work, John Phillip Santos—the author of Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation—creates a virtuosic meditation on ancestry and origins. Weaving together a poetic mix of family remembrance, personal odyssey, conquest history, and magical realism, Santos recounts his quest to find the missing chronicle of his mother's family, who arrived in southern Texas in the 1620s. As Santos traces their roots to northern Spain, he re-imagines the way we think about identity. The result is a uniquely engaging adventure in the frontier between self and family, past and present, at a time when breakthroughs in genetics are changing our window on history.

The Farthest Home Is in an Empire of Fire: A Tejano Elegy book jacket.

Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Elegant Thunder

Max Sherman

Max Sherman is professor emeritus and former dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. Revered by Americans across the political spectrum, Barbara Jordan was "the most outspoken moral voice of the American political system," in the words of former President Bill Clinton, who awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994. This volume, which includes a DVD, brings together several major political speeches that articulate Barbara Jordan's most deeply held values.

Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Elegant Thunder book jacket.

Courts and Terrorism

Mary L. Volcansek

Mary L. Volcansek is professor of political science at Texas Christian University and the 2011 Humanities Texas board chair. Courts and Terrorism examines how judiciaries in nine separate nations have responded to terrorism—not just to the current wave of Al-Qaeda threats, but also to narco-trafficking, domestic terrorism and organized crime syndicates. This volume discusses eleven case studies and analyzes the experiences of these various nations in their battles with terrorism to reveal the judicial quandary for democratic governance and the rule of law in the twenty-first century.

Courts and Terrorism book jacket.

Lake Views: This World and the Universe

Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and the Jack S. Josey-Welch Foundation Chair in Science at The University of Texas at Austin. Lake Views is a collection of essays on a wide range of subjects from cosmology to assorted world issues-military, political, and religious.

Lake Views: This World and the Universe book jacket.

The Kids are All Right: A Memoir

Diana Welch

Diana Welch wrote The Kids are All Right with her three siblings, Amanda, Liz, and Dan. The four alternate narrating this memoir about the painful experiences of losing their father in a car accident in 1983 and their mother to cancer three years later. As Gillian Engberg wrote in Booklist, "Starting with the title's pun, this unusual account will leave readers musing over memory's slippery nature; the imperfect, enduring bonds of family; and the human heart's remarkable resilience."

The Kids are All Right: A Memoir book jacket.

Lonesome Dove

Bill Wittliff

Lonesome Dove presents more than one hundred film stills taken during the production of the miniseries Lonesome Dove, for which Wittliff served as writer and executive producer. A foreword by Larry McMurtry, author of the novel upon which the miniseries was based, accompanies the text.

Lonesome Dove book jacket.

Vaquero

Bill Wittliff

An accomplished photographer, Bill Wittliff's photographs documenting the life of the Mexican vaquero have been exhibited in numerous galleries and institutions throughout this country and serve as the basis for one of the books he will be signing.

Vaquero book jacket.

Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics During World War II

Emilio Zamora

Emilio Zamora is a professor of history at The University of Texas at Austin. In Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas, Zamora traces the experiences of Mexican workers on the American home front during World War II as they moved from rural to urban areas seeking better-paying jobs in rapidly expanding industries. Contending that discrimination undermined job opportunities, Zamora examines the role of women workers, the evolving political struggle, the rise of the liberal-urban coalition, and the conservative tradition in Texas. The book has received the Clotilde P. García Tejano Book Prize from the Tejano Genealogy Society of Austin, the Carol Horton Tullis Memorial Prize by the Texas State Historical Association, and the 2009 Most Significant Scholarly Book by the Texas Institute of Letters.

Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics During World War II book jacket.